If you are looking for information for an individual child, start with the Literacy Skills Checklist.

Post the Steps to Literacy in your classroom as a quick reference to literacy instruction.

Are you the parent or teacher of a child with deaf-blindness or multiple disabilities? Are you looking for a community of families and teachers such as yours? Are you a professor or student at a university interested in connecting with others to share resources and strategies around literacy for learners with complex challenges? Are you an administrator looking for ways to improve literacy in your school systems? Then you are in the right place.

This site is for individuals interested in beginning or enhancing literacy instruction for children with combined vision and hearing loss. Its content is also designed to improve literacy instruction for children with multiple disabilities and other complex learning challenges. Our contributors include State Deaf Blind Project staff as well as teachers who want to give back to the field and help more families play a role in educating children with complex learning challenges. The instructional techniques and tips provided on this site are evidence based practices for increasing literacy skills.

It is recommended that you visit the Shifting the Perspective page for an explanation of literacy from a broader view. If you are looking for resources for a particular child, completing the Literacy Skills Checklist provides guidance in determining which area of the website will be most helpful.

To achieve literacy, there must be reading. To achieve reading, it must be meaningful. To achieve meaningfulness, there must be communication. To achieve communication, there must be experience. To achieve experience, there must be opportunity. To achieve opportunity, there must be care and understanding." (Laurie Hinzman)

Take Our Survey

Please take a minute to fill out this survey. Your feedback will allow us to improve our site and keep it current. You can also suggest examples, videos, and additional resources you would like to see included on the site.

Connect

Connect with our community to be in touch with others across the country interested in sharing ideas, problem solving and providing all children with opportunities to participate in meaningful literacy activities. Individualized profiles help you form connections within our community; save resources for future use; and participate in forum discussions in order to improve literacy for all learners.

Webinars

Webinar, Sue DellHow to teach to the common core:

This presentation introduces participants to the CCSSs and demonstrates how to apply these standards to students at different levels of abilities within the context of an integrated science investigation.

Facebook and Twitter

Follow NCDB on Twitter and Facebook to catch Literacy Tip Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will be highlighting certain resources within this website and giving tips on how to best use it. Look for the hashtag #DBLiteracyTipTuesday to catch all the highlighted resources.

Funded through award #H326T130013 by the Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education.
The opinions and policies expressed by this publication do not necessarily reflect those of The Teaching
Research Institute, Western Oregon University, or the U.S. Department of Education.